Any changes to backstop ‘must occur outside agreement’
Any concessions to British prime minister Theresa May will occur outside of the withdrawal agreement, which cannot be reopened, Irish Government sources have said.
While the Government believes a deal before the March 29 deadline is possible, there is a growing belief a final text may not be signed off until after that, during an extension of Article 50.
Speaking to the , the Government sources made clear that optimism of either a deal or a delay earlier in the week has given way to a more pessimistic outlook this weekend.
The Government also sought to play down comments by former UK Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, who accused the European Union of behaving dishonourably in negotiations and using the Irish border issue to try to lock the UK into their laws.
They said such comments are “not helpful” and solve nothing in an already tense environment.
Mr Raab told BBC Radio 4’s programme: “I think if the EU wants to extend the flexibility and pragmatism that we’ve shown, this deal is there to be done, but of course they’re trying to drag us into deep waters.
“(Tory former minister) George Eustice referred to frankly the dishonourable way that they’ve tried to bully us and shove us around and it’s time for us to stand up as a government and as a country.”
He continued: “It’s very clear that they’ve used the Northern Ireland protocol and backstop as a means of trying to press on the sensitive issue of Northern Ireland and with all the sensitivities around that, in order effectively to try and lock us into a range of their laws, really just to undercut our competitive market.
I’ve got no problem with the EU negotiating to protect their interests and I think in fairness the prime minister has bent over backwards to try and satisfy and respect the equities on the EU side.
“But I think trying to use Northern Ireland — given the history of that conflict, given the secessionist tendencies in other European countries — in order to put pressure on us in the way that they have — no, I don’t think that’s right. Frankly, I don’t think it’s right, from the point of view of European unity and solidarity.”
Speaking at a conference in Galway, Fianna Fáil’s Brexit spokesperson Lisa Chambers said the Government’s premature championing of the Irish backstop as a really big political win led to a souring of relations with some British MPs.
“It turned the issue of the backstop into a very toxic issue that we really haven’t recovered from,” she said.
At the same event, former EU Commission secretary-general Carlo Trojan said the only way out of the Northern Ireland backstop is for the UK to opt for a much softer Brexit.
Mr Trojan said a delay to Brexit by extending the Article 50 exit process makes sense, but only if Westminster votes for the EU-UK divorce deal later this month.
He insisted the UK would need “a couple of months” to ratify the agreement.
He questioned the merits of extending Brexit until the end of June if MPs rejected the deal and a no-deal exit.
“What will you solve with a short extension? The situation will be exactly the same,” he said.
Katy Hayward, an academic at Queen’s University Belfast, said it was not clear what the result of a second referendum would be.
